Thinking for freedom

摘要

American civil libertes need to be protected by an emergency constitueion, a legal scholar proposes in a tought-provoking new boook. The attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11th 2001 destroyed lives and infrastructure, as well as disrupting the economy, but they did not threaten America's existence as a state. For this reason alone, they cannot be classified as acts of war. Bruce Ackerman, a legal scholar at Yale Law School and a well-known liberal public-policy gadfly, regards this distinction as crucial.